The almonds blossomed and the weather got warmer as the days grew longer, and Ruthie was as happy as she could ever remember being. She was in love, had an amazing part in an amazing play, and her horrible ex was no longer at school to torment either her or her boyfriend.

The police told Ruthie and her dads that they were looking for Brett, as he was wanted on assault charges. As best they could tell, he was somewhere on his parents' property, probably in one of the numerous little trailer houses they had strewn about their orchards and fields. The police didn't have enough for a warrant to search the entire thirty acres, and every time they went to the house, Brett's mother simply said that she hadn't seen him.

"There's not much else we can do, unfortunately," Officer Briggs told the Grimaldis. "We're a small outfit, the nimrods we had in custody aren't talking, and his mom and dad aren't giving anything away."

Ruthie laughed at "nimrods," but Officer Briggs looked at her sharply. They were all sitting in her living room.

"Those two aren't bothering you, are they, Ruthie? Because they're one shoelace away from being expelled anyway," the police officer informed her.

Ruthie shook her head. "I don't think they'll do anything without Brett to be their ringleader," she told him.

He nodded in grim satisfaction and took his leave.

"I heard that they're using their dogs to communicate," Pepsi told Gordon, Ruthie and Elliott at rehearsal. "They're paranoid about even using their cell phones, so they just tie notes to Blue's collar, and she goes and finds Brett out in their orchard."

Of course, the big change in Ruthie's life was in her relationship with Gordon. He rarely spoke to her, and didn't even look at her if he could help it. None of the others knew what had happened between them, and Ruthie was too ashamed to tell anyone, even Elliott. She knew that there was enough truth in Gordon's words and feelings to make her feel very small indeed.

However, even with all of the joy in her life, she missed Gordon, and felt his absence keenly, most of all during lunchtime. He'd taken to eating with his chess club friends in the math room, saying that they needed to "strategize" for tournament season.

Even today, Gordo just nodded at Pepsi's interesting gossip, and went to join another group of actors.

"What's that about, then?" Elliott asked Ruthie. "Still don't want to tell me?" He nudged her as they watched Gordon walk away.

"Nothing to tell," she tried to reassure him. 

Pepsi, too, was confused by the change in their group dynamics. 

"I've known both of you too long not to know that's a lie," she informed Ruthie. "Even Linda can tell, and she's not even around us that much. 

"I'm really quite hurt," she continued, raising her voice dramatically. "To think neither of you feel you can confide in me, I mean really."

"Gimme a break, Pepsi," Ruthie answered, slinging an arm around her skinny friend. "You know I still love you."

Even though Madame Thenardier was usually played by a larger person, they had decided to let her be a skinny, mean, shrew, rather than try to put Pepsi into a fat suit or anything like that. And, real life weirdness aside, casting Pepsi and Gordon as the Thenardiers had been a stroke of genius on Ms. Piper's part. They were hilarious together.

Ruthie and Elliott were called onstage at that moment, cutting their conversation off, but Ruthie was bothered, off and on for the rest of the afternoon, by how Gordon had abruptly left them for his "other" friends.

She mentioned it to Elliott while they were walking home. The echoes of the neighborhood kids made a pleasant backdrop to their conversation. They were going to go to her house and work on homework.

"El? What do you think?"

"Hm? Dunno, Jelly Bean, perhaps you should talk to him?" Elliott answered. 

He had gotten a text on his phone at the end of rehearsal, and he'd been distracted ever since, leaving Ruthie feeling very ignored and unimportant.

"Speaking of being distant, you're doing a pretty good job of that yourself," Ruthie complained, leaning into him as they walked, nearly pushing him off the sidewalk.

"Oh, thank you, darling," he answered, smiling at her as he put his phone away.

"What?" Ruthie had hit her limit. "You know what? Why don't you just toddle off home, okay, Romeo?" And she took the turn that would take her to her house, leaving Elliott standing alone on the corner.

"Ruthie? I'm sorry," he called. "Text you later? Yeah?"

Ruthie just ignored him and went into her house. 

What in the hell was going on? Gordon she understood. She actually wondered if things would ever be back to normal again between them.

Elliott, on the other hand.

She was perturbed all through dinner, and she took herself to her perch on the roof after waving goodbye to her dads as they left for a wine-tasting.

She could see Elliott, sitting in the living room with his grandparents. This surprised her, as he usually spent as little time as possible with them. They weren't interacting, particularly; his grandfather was watching football, and it looked like his grandma was knitting.

Elliott himself was kind of watching the game, but he was mainly just staring off into space, in between looking at his phone.

Ruthie decided that he was probably preoccupied thinking about their little spat after school, and took pity on him.

"Want to come over? My dads won't be home until after midnight."

She saw him pull out his phone, read her text, then, incredibly, she saw him click away from it and read something else on the screen, probably whatever it was he'd received at the end of rehearsal.

WTF?

After a few minutes, she swallowed her pride and sent him another text.

"???"

She watched him click on her text and look at it. 

"I'm so sorry, Jelly Bean, but I'm swamped with homework, absolutely buried in it rn. Rain check, okay?"

Oh. My. God.

Ruthie's self-esteem hit an all time low as her temper hit an all time high.

"You. Fucking. Liar!"

Elliott looked up sharply, seeming to stare right at her from a quarter of a mile away.

"Are you spying on me again??"

By now Ruthie was so angry she stood up and nearly fell off the roof. The fact that Elliott was right mattered not a whit to her.

"What? Don't even try to change the subject, mother fucker!"

"What? I'm not! You're up on your roof watching me, admit it! Isn't that the subject?"

"The subject is that I asked if you wanted to come over, and you fucking LIED to me! You dick!"

"Oh, FFS, get off your high horse for once. Are you still up there? Still watching me?"

"No! I wouldn't bother! And I wouldn't want you to feel SPIED ON."

Ruthie waited, but got no answer. Could it be he was really upset? She paced in the family room and chewed the side of her thumb for a few minutes, until she got another text from him.

"Let me in, please. I'm on yr porch."

Ruthie tried to act annoyed, but the truth was she was very happy to see him, and she nearly threw herself into his arms.

"I'm so glad you came over! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Elliott, okay?" She kissed his ear after she spoke.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry as well, shh, shh, no need to take on so," he answered with a happy laugh as he released her.

She led him to the couch, pushed him back, then sat on his lap, straddling his legs, so she faced him. She laced her fingers through his and peered at him.

"So what in the hell is going on? You've been completely weird since you got that text." 

"I have?" He wouldn't meet her eyes.

"You're doing it again! Why?" Ruthie was getting tearful.

"No, no, no tears, please," Elliott begged, enfolding her in his arms for a few seconds before releasing her. He kissed her on the mouth, firmly, and smiled at her after, giving her his complete attention for the first time in hours, she felt.

"So what, then? Is it an old girlfriend?" She smiled, since that was the most outrageous thing she could think of. She waited for him to return her smile, and drew a hitching breath when he didn't.

"Oh my god, I was kidding, but it is, isn't it?" Ruthie started to cry. "And you're acting weird because you're trying to figure out how to tell me you're going back to her, aren't you? Oh no, oh no," she lamented, unable to control her tears.

"No, darling, don't. I mean, it is, but it's not what you think."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" Ruthie protested. "'Cause what I'm thinking is that what's her name who won the awards is crooking her finger at you and you want her back. Why wouldn't you? She's beautiful, she's smart, wonderful on stage, a perfect--"

"Yeah, well, my girlfriend is all those things as well," Elliott quipped, smoothing her hair away from her face. "No, it's not anything like that, honest."

"Then what? What is it that's got you ignoring me all afternoon?" Ruthie asked, and looking so worried and adorable that it gave Elliot serious pause.

He finally took a deep breath.

"I've been offered a part in a play," he said. "The lead, actually, in a serious drama, an amazing part. My ex would be playing the female lead, but the director remembered me from another show, and asked for me to come audition."

"But that's just a formality," Ruthie concluded.

Elliott gave a little shrug. "Probably, dunno for sure," he answered. He wanted to be as honest as possible. "But I'd be the lead. In a West End production, Ruthie, can you imagine?"

Ruthie slowly shook her head. "But you can, I'm guessing, she said.

Elliott looked soberly at her. "I'd need to be back in London by May tenth," he told her. 

"Is that when the audition is?"

Elliott nodded. "The text was from Samairah. My agent contacted her, looking for me to tell me about this. It's an incredible opportunity. You understand that, right?"

And Ruthie slowly nodded.

"I just have to convince my grandparents to let me go."

Elliott released her and sat back on the couch. "I just have to convince my grandparents to let me go," he repeated.